Luboš Motl (December 5, 1973–) is a Czechphysicist specializing in string theory. During his active career, he was a competent scientist and an author of mathematics textbooks. Now he is mostly a raging asshole from hell.

Between 2004 and 2007, Motl was an assistant professor at Harvard University. He got the job through competence and talent, and lost it by being a raging asshole. He has not held a university position since. Motl's Wikipedia article is anodyne, but proudly lists all his arXiv submissions. He has not published a single paper there or anywhere else since 2007, when he split from Harvard. He originally got his Ph.D. scholarship because of a paper he posted on the arXiv as an undergraduate.[2]

His blog, The Reference Frame, consists of abuse and insults hurled at anyone he disagrees with, mostly concerning physics. He has an annoying habit of continuing to edit posts for months after making them, making citation difficult, but at least he doesn't change his stated opinions and makes the abuse and insults more refined. If you disagree or dissent from Motl's own opinion, even in the most mild and engaging manner, Motl will ban your disqus account from commenting at his site and then reply to your comments such that you're unable to rebut or engage in any kind of debate with him. He will even go so far as to post your comments to him elsewhere at his site, editing them to change their meaning and tone. PZ Myers has called Motl a "crackpot"[3] (which is also Motl's favoured word for anyone who disagrees with him). It is true that Luboš is willing to embrace crackpot ideas[4][5][6] when it suits his politics. However, his science is generally good within his sphere of competence. The problem is his refusal to recognize that his sphere of competence is finite.

And God help you if you've ever implied anywhere that string theory is anything less than the revealed secret of the Universe, particularly if you're Lee Smolin, Peter Woit or "similar breathtakingly dishonest far-left anti-scientific subhuman activist garbage".[7] Motl has so far failed to keep their papers entirely off the readable categories of arXiv, but not for want of effort.

“”Sorry, Greek reader who lives outside the reality, but an average Greek surely doesn't deserve and shouldn't have money for a "good German car". It's just your fantasy. The real question is how many millions of Greeks should starve to death and not which good German car they should buy.

“”Show me a single influential scholar in a department of women's studies who understands the very basic insight about that discipline, namely why virtually all of scholarly feminism is intellectual garbage.

Motl doesn't understand the point of Martin Luther King Day celebration. Apparently, black people had to sit in the back of the buses for entirely sensible reasons:

“”The average U.S. black earns some 65% of the salary of the average white. (…) Some "disadvantaged tickets on the bus" sound rather sensible. Second, the degree of hygiene and safety is simply lower in (black people)

“”It would be silly to suggest that a random black American has the same likelihood to do physics (or something similar) well as a random white American. (…) In practice, almost all science in recent 500 years has been done and found by the white people and/or the West.

“”But needless to say, this is exactly what feminists, homosexualists, and other radical leftists want to do to all inconvenient biological human beings, too. If these individuals are not kept in check, like the Muslim communities, they will simply do their best to kill anyone who realizes that this left-wing ideology is cancer.

“”I think that trash like yourself cannot be debated. It must be destroyed. What is written on the "climate denial" page [in Wikipedia] is just crime, the people who are responsible for it are criminals, and as soon as I get the opportunity to collaborate with someone on their liquidation, I will do it.

In a later comment, Motl clarified:

“”When I say to liquidate them, I don't mean anything illegal. I just mean the same thing that was eventually done with the Nazis during the second war.

Connolley responded with:

“”Amusingly, I was reading Popper on the Marxists just last night. He lays into them very strongly for using ambiguous language to avoid explicit advocation of violence, but the implications are clear. How odd to find Luboš having this in common with them.

There was a picnic on Harvard Quad's lawn, with 60 students, primarily black. Police were called in to check their IDs. Motl reacted thus:[11]

On May 12th, two groups organized a noisy picnic on the Quad's public lawn. Harvard students were everywhere around. Many of them were studying: it was a reading period. Many of them are sensitive and can't concentrate well if there is noise around.

It shouldn't be unexpected that someone called the police. If it were a party I couldn't effectively attend and if there were people around me who would also think that the noise is just too much, I would call police, too.

[....]

Wow. If someone makes a huge mess in front of the buildings where some of the smartest young people on the planet are supposed to study, it is illegitimate to call police because it is a black people's party and everyone — the whole community of Harvard students — is instantly accused of racism and the director of the "intercultural foundation" is black, too.

Counter's "foundation" is clearly meant to be a tool to intimidate students and other members of the community, politicize all questions, and make sure that a pathetic hypocritical ideology is more important than a tolerable atmosphere during the reading period and other values that used to be associated with the world of Academia.

[....]

These days, the Academia — universities as well as their individual departments — are literally flooded with similar distasteful foundations and committees whose only purpose is to overfill the community with propaganda and fear and to impose very unbalanced, politically biased code of a certain flavor.

Motl is smart, though not nearly as smart as he thinks he is. (It's impossible for anyone to be as smart as Motl thinks he is.) This means everyone who disagrees with him is stupid, probably to the point of criminal negligence:

“”I am myself under significant pressure from large groups of crackpots and an effectively infinite sequence of online idiots, many of whom are anonymous and possibly using many pseudonyms to improve their case according to optics of people who are not capable of independent thinking and who judge the truth according to the number of pseudonyms signed under a particular opinion, without realizing that one Motl signature is still more than 50,000 signatures of idiots.

“”[Y]our impression that the battle between crackpots like you and high-energy theoretical physics is the only example of these issues is an artifact of your extremely limited knowledge, intelligence, and partially a consequence of your attempts to promote yourself.

“”I assure you that I am not making any mistake in the analysis of the relation of capitalism and the planned economy. I have checked and rechecked the texts, and if you have a feeling that something is incorrect, then be sure that the error is on your side. ;-)